


Waxwork

by caras_galadhon (Galadriel)



Category: Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Community: seans_50, Ethnocentrism, Hate, M/M, Napoleonic Wars, Sharpe's Regiment, Soldiers, Vignette, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:24:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/pseuds/caras_galadhon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was anything Girdwood excelled at, it was appearances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waxwork

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://seans-50.livejournal.com/profile)[**seans_50**](http://seans-50.livejournal.com/) [January Film Challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/seans_50/110089.html) using _Sharpe's Regiment_ as inspiration. Also written for the "Conspiracy" challenge prompt (#11) at [](http://sharpe-thinking.livejournal.com/profile)[**sharpe_thinking**](http://sharpe-thinking.livejournal.com/) and for [](http://helena-s-renn.livejournal.com/profile)[**helena_s_renn**](http://helena-s-renn.livejournal.com/), as an extremely late Halloween treat I owe her for "knocking" on my [virtual!door](http://caras-galadhon.livejournal.com/390087.html), er, in 2008. D'oh!

  


_There_. Girdwood curled his fingers, guiding the ends of his pride and joy into its customary curls, luxuriating in the slide of hair and pomade against his skin.

He smiled, and the Colonel in the looking glass smiled back, primped and preened until he was a perfect reflection of a perfectly proper officer. Over his reflection's shoulder, the newest group of recruits marched by the window, marring the mirror image, each step and stamp out of time with the other, expertly inexpert, and utterly green.

All but that Vaughn fellow and his bog-trotter, striding in perfect time, never out of step with each other, as if they'd been born with their boots on, rather than dredged up from the slurry along with the rest of the rabble.

The mirror-Colonel frowned, his moustache drooping. Perhaps it was the cheap homemade wax he'd had to concoct in lieu of proper supplies that spoiled his visage, but much more likely it was the way Vaughn and O'Keefe seemed a little too smart, even for old soldiers.

A little too smart, and a little too close, even when reversed in tin and glass.

His eyes followed their passage off the edge, losing them in frame and wall. The thought niggled at him, the tiniest flickers of doubt drawing lines around his image's eyes, wrinkling his forehead, crinkling the corners of his mouth.

Yet not a moment later he heard the clearing of a throat, and his reflection smiled, smoothing out skin, restoring appearance, for appearances were all when selling Simmerson's soldiers. And in pursuit of that perfection, it was a Lieutenant Colonel's duty to make sure not a hair was out of place.

Not _one_ hair. And if single strands resisted, it would be simple work to snip them clean off.


End file.
